


Hot Canadian Girlfriend

by tisfan



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kisses, Fluff, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 03:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16210283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Rhodey's girlfriend has ditched him for their winter break plans, so Rhodey needs a backup.Tony Stark to the rescue, except that really, he'd rather be Rhodey's boyfriend...





	Hot Canadian Girlfriend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [natashalieromanov](https://archiveofourown.org/users/natashalieromanov/gifts).



> For the #RhodeyBirthdayCelebrationWeek Gift Exchange

 “Hey, what are you doing for the holidays?”

Tony looked up from the engineering schematic. He took a slug of -- yuck, ice cold coffee -- to see Rhodey frowning at the phone. He’d been having one of those awkward conversations with Monica, his girlfriend, and that hadn’t been interesting enough for Tony to pay attention to. Mostly they were either Rhodey trying to explain something, or Rhodey rolling his eyes while he waited for her to finish telling him about whatever thing she’d been up to with her frozen quebecian ice-skater sorority sisters.

Rhodey didn’t even speak French.

Although, from the one time he’d asked, Monica didn’t speak French, either, but she was good at _Frenching_.

Uh. Rhodey had asked him a question, before he got caught up in thinking about Rhodey making out with some bland bimbo who thought skiing was fun.

Tony was a lot more fun than skiing.

He was probably better at making out, too. Or, he would be, if he got any practice. But who the hell wanted to make out with a not-quite-seventeen year old boy genius who still wore a retainer at night?

“Um. I dunno, probably dodging my folks and raiding the booze once they’re gone?”

That was what he usually did. Or think of excuses not to be home. Or hide out in the basement, where he’d put together a semi-functional robotics lab. Some families, he knew, gave out gifts and sat around a tree and ate ridiculous amounts of turkey and pie, but that had never been the Starks. Sometimes there were presents, especially if Maria felt particularly guilty, but a lot of the time the presents were more along the lines of “here’s a charitable donation for my pet project in your name” kinda things.

It was fine. It was always fine. It wasn’t like Tony wanted things. He had all the things he could possibly want and then some.

“Well, that doesn’t sound fun,” Rhodey said. “You wanna-- look, Monica cancelled on me at the last minute.”

“She does that a lot, she’s fired, get a new girlfriend,” Tony said.

“Yeah, it might come down to that,” Rhodey said, and he sounded kind of sad. Enough sad that Tony looked up from his project.

“Well, that’s grody,” Tony remarked. “Like, to the max. Haven’t you been planning on going--” ug. “--skiing and all since like, October? She was supposed to meet your parents, right?”

“Yeah,” Rhodey said.

Rhodey had been dating Monica ever since Tony started rooming with him, even though, to be fair, he’d never actually met Monica.

“Has she actually ever met your parents?”

Rhodey’s mouth pressed into a thin line, like he’d licked a lemon and was trying to pretend he hadn’t. Rhodey did that, a lot, actually. He was not a tequila drinker and he kept trying to pretend he was. Tony didn’t know why -- there were so many other boozes out there to try, surely there was something Rhodey would like better. Which was why, of course, he kept pushing other liquor on his roommate. Something had to taste better, right?

“No, no she… they ain’t met.”

“Sounds like it’s a her problem, sugarbear,” Tony said. “You’ve been dating for what? Almost two years now? Sounds like she doesn’t want to commit. And while I have to say, good for her, as far as you know, being tied down sounds like no fun at all --” again, that was a theory. Tony’d gotten pretty close to third base a few times, but no further. He assumed, however, that people liked sex. That seemed reasonable, based on all evidence. “--if she really wants a committed thing, she’d have taken the plunge and actually met the parents. I mean, I’ve met your parents, and you’re not even dating me, and weirdly enough, your mom actually seems to like me, which I have to say is not at all the normal thing, and if she can like broken white boy idiots, she can probably like a damn figure skater from the wilds of Montreal, right?”

“Maybe it’s me,” Rhodey said. “It’s just me. Not being good enough.”

“Oh, come on, don’t even go there,” Tony said. “You are like, the _actual_ best. I will fight someone about that.”

“If you fight anyone,” Rhodey said, “I’m just going to be prying your white-boy ass out of a trash can.”

Tony snorted. “I’m not Steve Rogers, and you’re not Bucky Barnes. I can handle myself. Assuming I have time to plan.”

“No tasers, Tones, I told you that before.”

“I’m being supportive! I am offended on behalf of my Rhodey Bear, who deserves a good woman in his life, and I just don’t think Monica is it. You need someone new.”

“Well, right now, what I need is someone to go with me on this ski trip, and you’re it, supportive roommate.”

“What?”

“Ski trip. You’ll love it, it’ll be fun.”

“Ski trip. I will hate it, I will break my leg, and I will make you wait on me hand and foot and whine a lot.”

“Not much different than now, except more hot chocolate,” Rhodey said. “Come on, come on, come on, I already paid for it.”

“Ug,” Tony complained. “I hate being out doorsy. Out doors would be so much better if they put a roof over it and gave it climate control.”

“You should get out more, anyway. You’re going to turn into a robot, instead of just build them.”

“Sounds like a good plan, sourpatch,” Tony said.

“Come on. You know you want to.”

“You know I don’t want to.”

“You’re coming with me.”

“I’m not going with you.”

He was going with Rhodey. To go skiing and drink hot chocolate, hopefully spiked with fun, recreational alcohol. Possibly to meet hot skiing chicks who didn’t care that he wasn’t eighteen yet.

And to cheer Rhodey up, because it was sounding more and more like Canadian girlfriend was Canadian gone friend.

***

The car wasn’t going anywhere. A late model Toyota with bad tires, the green 4-door rental was off the road and into the ditch. A wall of ice and snow, mingled with sludge and road mud blocked then in. The snowplow had gone through mere moments after Rhodey skidded off the road to avoid a head-on collision with an SUV that was hogging the entire center of the road – and no, they hadn’t even stopped to look, they were probably talking on their fucking cell phone and didn’t even notice that they nearly squashed two kids in a rental car, at least Tony hoped that was the case, because he already thought badly of people and if he had to consider the possibility that they deliberately left the scene without even checking to see if someone was hurt, then he’d just give it up entirely.

Not that anyone would care if Tony quit on humanity. Humanity had already quit on Tony years ago. He was worthless, except for his money and family connections, but as an actual human person, there was almost no one who would actually miss him.

Well, except Rhodey. Rhodey would miss him.

Tony thought. He believed that. He had to believe that, because otherwise he was stuck in a snowstorm, on the side of the road, in east end bumblebee.

Some days, it just doesn’t pay to chew through the restraints. Tony climbed back into the car, pulled the door shut and rested his head against the dashboard.

“Just kill me now,” Tony begged as Rhodey opened the driver’s side door. “Save me the trouble of starving to death and being eaten by wolves.”

“There’s a shortage of really hungry wolves on the eastern seaboard,” Rhodey commented. “Are you hurt?”

“Dignity,” Tony said. Also, his tailbone, because the first thing that happened, after the car stopped in the ditch, was Tony got out to see the damage, slipped in the ice, and sat down. Hard.

On the ice. And, you know, frozen road and dirt and snow. So he was wet, cold, and his tailbone hurt. “Are you sure you can’t import some wolves?”

“Pretty sure there’s rules against it.”

“Rules are just fees for rich people,” Tony said. “How much would it cost to import wolves to the Eastern Seaboard.”

“I’ll get right on lookin’ that up for you, just as soon as we’re someplace warm and has a library,” Rhodey said. “By which point you won’t want them anyway.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Tony whined. “You know I’ll just get stubborn.”

Rhodey pulled out the map and peered at it. “Pretty sure we’re right about here,” he said, pointing to a spot on the map. Tony didn’t bother to look. It was a map, it wasn’t like they made sense to anyone except boy scouts and ROTC assholes. Like Rhodey. So Tony should probably look, because Rhodey was all that was standing between him and frozen slushie death.

“So, about six miles, from here to the cabin,” Rhodey said.

“How do you figure that?” Tony wondered how long it took to walk six miles. He wasn’t sure he’d ever walked an entire mile by himself, anyway. In his life. Ever. He thought he’d read somewhere that most people have a stride of about four miles an hour. It would probably take him half an hour to walk a mile over the ice and packed snow, in his dress shoes. Three hours. It’d be stone dark before they arrived. And he might not have any toes left. Glorious. Fucking glorious.

“I,” he announced to the inside of his car, “am so incredibly unprepared for this.”

“You’re from New York,” Rhodey pointed out. “Sure you’ve been in snow before.”

“Yeah, in New York City, where there’s trains and cabs and eight and a half million people. Not… side of the road snow.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rhodey said. “Come on, rich boy, let’s go. We got a lot of miles to walk.”

“We are going to die, and we are going to be cold and miserable while we die.”

***

When they arrived -- at least Tony assumed that Rhodey wasn’t lying about arrival, although he wasn’t certain at all that it mattered -- the power was out. Which is why Tony wasn’t positive that Rhodey wasn’t lying about arriving. Tony couldn’t see shit. It was snowing -- still, again, did it even matter -- and Tony’s feet were so wet and cold he’d actually stopped feeling them a while ago. Which didn’t seem like a good idea, and he probably should say something to Rhodey about it, but it wasn’t like Rhodey could carry him or anything.

“Not much further now,” Rhodey said, talking to Tony like Tony was an idiot child. Which, he probably was, being stuck outside in this weather, buried in snow, wearing a suit like a fool, because he wanted to impress Rhodey’s parents.

He’d met Mama Rhodes before, it wasn’t like she disliked him or anything. Or, at least as far as Tony could tell. But Tony wasn’t hot Canadian girlfriend, and Mama Rhodes probably wanted something more like a grandbaby-making girlfriend than a clingy, hands-on, mechanical engineering roommate slash not-boyfriend.

Right?

“Come on,” Rhodey coaxed. “All these places got firewood, and fireplaces, and maybe some of them have backup generators, if I can figure how t’ get ‘em running.”

Tony let Rhodey lead him into the dark cabin. In the woods. In a snowstorm. “Jason Voorhees?” Tony wondered.

“This isn’t camp crystal lake,” Rhodey said.

“Well, I suppose it d-d-d-oesn’t matter,” Tony stuttered. “N-n-n-ot like I’m going to run away. Ax murderers are snuggly warm, right?”

Rhodey got them inside, helped Tony strip out of most of his wet things. Which was, frankly, all of them, and while Tony had never actually been undressed by someone else before -- his nurse didn’t count when he was like three and still needed help with buttons -- this was not exactly what he’d had in mind.

Rhodey was impersonal and quick, unfastening buttons and tugging down Tony’s zipper until he was standing there, shivering, in his drawers (which were also a little wet, and Tony thought they were more than a little see-through, and if he hadn’t been so cold, he might have worried more about shrinkage.) Or something.

“Here, come on,” Rhodey said, wrapping a dusty smelling blanket around Tony’s shoulders and directing him to a somewhat ugly, scratchy sofa. “Sit here, I’ll see what we got.”

_What we got_ turned out to be two kerosine heaters, a couple of chemical hot packs (Rhodey crushed one of them and tucked it under Tony’s bare toes) and a few bottles of water that were slightly above room temperature, which meant the power hadn’t been out for long.

“You know, I bet your super hot Canadian girlfriend would have already plucked you a new winter coat from, I don’t know, coat bushes or something,” Tony said. He wanted to wave a hand around while he talked because that’s what he always did, but the heat around him, tucked between the blanket and hs skin, was at a very delicate balance, and moving at all let in whooshes of cold air and then he’d start shivering again, and while he was useless, and worthless, and helpless, he didn’t want to put Rhodey out any more than he was already put out.

And thinking of hot Canadian girlfriend like the heroine of an Andre Norton novel probably wasn’t helping Tony’s self-esteem, it seemed sort of like the thing. They always seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going, and could stalk, painlessly trap and kill their own clothing animals, and all while looking fashionably stylish.

Tony could sometimes manage to get a few wrinkled bills into the soda machine down in the labs without needing backup.

“My super hot Canadian girlfriend wouldn’t be doin’ any of those things, Tony,” Rhodey said. “She’s--”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony said. “She knows what the real world is like. I know.”

“Why you so down on yourself, man?” Rhodey wondered. “You’re like… literally the smartest guy I know, and clever, and determined. You might have Stark money, Tones, but that’s… that’s not _who you are_.”

“Just…”

Rhodey burrowed into the blankets at Tony’s side; and Tony became aware that Rhodey’s hands were cold, and Rhodey’s toes weren’t warm either, and fuck, the man’s cheek was cold. “Jesus, why didn’t you say something?” Tony was shivering again, but he draped himself around Rhodey as much as possible, trying to share his body heat, and the little amount he’d trapped up inside the blankets.

“You’re feelin’ it worse than I am,” Rhodey said. “It’s a black thing, we store heat.”

“That’s a bullshit thing,” Tony said. “You’re just--”

“Taking care of you,” Rhodey said. “Because I want to. Makes me feel better about this shit to do something.”

“What shit?” Tony wondered. “Because getting run off the road, and the power being out, and all that, that’s nobody’s fault, really.” Except maybe the other driver.

“You, being here,” Rhodey said. “You wouldn’t be, if I hadn’t asked you.”

“No, I’d be home, warmer, but stuck with Howard, and trying to pretend I’m not watching the levels on the liquor bottles.” Tony snuggled in closer, because cold hands aside, Rhodey’s ribcage was at least warm. “This is fine, this is great, I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be.”

Which was, actually, true.

Tony sat back a moment to ponder that. Rhodey was getting warmer against him, they were tucked in blankets, and the cabin had either that Jason’s-going-to-kill-us or we’re-going-to-make-out vibe going on. Either case, it was different and new, and now that Tony’s feet weren’t wet, he was feeling better. “But you know, I understand if you’d rather have Monica here.”

“Um, about Monica,” Rhodey said, and while Tony was pretty sure that his dusky skin went several shades darker, Rhodey met his eyes. “She, uh… she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Oh, did you two finally break things--”

“No. I mean… look, I wanted to tell you before this, but it just became this thing. I met you, and you were this big brain, everyone heard about golden child, and you were so… everything I wasn’t. Everything seemed so easy for you, and I was jealous,” Rhodey admitted, which was just so stupid, because what the hell did Tony have to be jealous of? He’d have given over his entire fortune without even thinking about it to have the kind of normal, only a little bit blessed, have to work for it, life that Rhodey had. “I… look, here--”

Rhodey shuffled through his clothes, unlike Tony, he’d been wearing jeans and a thermal undershirt and while he’d stripped down to those plain-weave undergarments, he was mostly dry. “You’ve seen this picture, go ahead, take it out.”

Rhodey handed Tony his wallet, and for just a moment, Tony was caught up in the moment. You literally did not hand another man your wallet. It was like going through his mom’s purse, there was something sacred and private and--

The picture of Monica was in that little plastic billfold thing that came in some department store wallets. Not quite sealed, but protecting those pictures in little picture condoms.

His hands were shaking and Tony knew it wasn’t the cold anymore, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

Monica smiled up at him out of the candid, the background some rock somewhere.

“You never did tell me about this picture,” Tony prompted, like there was some story there, but then he tugged it out of the picture condom. The backing picture was one of Rhodey’s sisters, wearing a coronet of pigtails around her head, little afro poofs that skimmed her brow like a crown.

“Nothin’ to tell,” Rhodey admitted.

Tony didn’t have to look; his fingertips told him what he already knew. The picture of Monica wasn’t printed on film. It was slick and glossy, a little thicker than a magazine page.

The kind of photo that came pre-set in a frame, so that the frame didn’t look weird and hollow. The kind of photo that could be of anyone, but was usually some blandly pretty blonde girl sitting against a background rock. For a moment, Tony wanted to crow with some sort of triumph, and recognized once again that he just wasn’t a very nice person. He was-- confused.

“Why?”

Meaning, of course, why would Rhodey do this? Why lie? Why lie to _Tony_ , for fuck’s sake?

Rhodey shrugged one shoulder. “I-- you were showing off and--”

Yeah, Tony would just bet he’d been showing off. He came into college ridiculously young, he wanted people to notice him, wanted people to care. He hadn’t yet figured out that people who care and people who were there in his face were different people.

“--I wanted to be better than you. At something. Anything, really.”

Tony blinked. “You don’t know that you already are? I mean, Rhodey, come on, sourpatch, you’re like-- you’ve got this whole thing in the bag.”

“Everything looked so easy, to be Tony Stark, I just--”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Well, I do _now_. But at the time, I was still worried about what you thought of me.”

Huh. Tony stared. “I think you’re amazing,” Tony admitted, utterly nonplussed.

Rhodey gave him that smile; not the normal flash of teeth that he shared with everyone, but the special, little smirk. “That’s because I _am_.”

“So, uh,” Tony said, finally turning the whole thing over in his head and, “the take away from this is that you’re uh… single?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Tones. The whole time I’ve been at school.”

Tony nodded a few times. “Okay. okay. That’s good data. I can work with this. I um… is that a situation you want to keep at the current level? Or are you open to a change in status?”

“Depends on the situation, but, no, I--”

“So, theoretically, if I was to ask you for a date, you might not shoot me right out of the sky?”

“It’s a theory. Might want some empirical evidence.”

“We have a nice couch, we have lowered lights, we have one blanket,” Tony suggested, feeling the muscles in his thighs quaking from nerves. “We could test out-- a few things?”

“Like?”

Rhodes was going to make him say it.

_Asshole_.

“Ki-ki-ssing?” God damn it, stutter!

“Yeah, okay.”

The first kiss was, objectively, terrible. All too much lip and not enough of anything else, awkward mouthing at each other, hands that were too big and didn’t hit, and rubbing at each other without any direction.

At the same time, it was the best thing that ever happened to Tony in his life.

Here was someone who was kissing him. Because they wanted to, and for no other reason. If Rhodey’d wanted something else from him, money, or a job, or whatever, he could have had it months ago.

There was nothing here except a dim heat and interest in Tony.

The first kiss was, objectively, spectacular.

And… they had a lot of time to get practice in.

By the next morning, woken up by family members, sprawled together on the sofa and blinking into the early morning light, Tony and Rhodey got a lot of time to practice.

And later, on the slopes, when Rhodey told Mama Rhodes that his _boyfriend_ was not a great skier and they were going to hit the bunny slopes, and Mama didn’t even blink, Tony got the chance to practice kissing Rhodey’s cheek with exuberance.

Rhodey’s smirk, the way it snuck up on his mouth and beamed out, was worth everything.

Boyfriend.

And Tony didn’t even have to be from Canada.                                                                           


End file.
